I’m deeply worried about the city’s fiscal health. The City of Kingston’s spending has grown from being merely a problem to an outright addiction. Even when confronted with news of spiraling costs and foreseeable tax increases, city government can’t bring itself to control spending.

At the federal level, overspending is disguised by running deficits. But at the state and local levels, immediate tradeoffs are necessary, primarily through increases in sales and property taxes, spending freezes, painful layoffs, or some combination of these.

And even as warning signs flash, and dark clouds of economic trouble form, local officials vote as if its blue-skies ahead. Don’t worry, be happy!

The most populist voices in city government frame their spending as just “taking money from billionaires and mega corps to pay for things.” But the obvious reality is that there are no billionaires, few multi-millionaires and no mega-corps locally to tax. So, these spending addicts are left with the next best thing — taking from local small businesses, property owners, higher-income earners, and eventually you.

Last week’s City of Kingston Finance and Audit Committee meeting was a snapshot of addiction in action. In all fairness, no one on the city’s common council (or mayor) seem to have any experience in the private sector managing P&Ls (profit and loss). As such, they’re not familiar with how to nurture prosperity. Indeed, some outright resent it, as if someone’s gain is ill-gotten.

At the committee meeting, city officials displayed zero interest in spending constraints, and showed contempt for the very sources from which tax revenues come. For a third straight year, the city is now on track to blow right past state property-tax caps. According to the city comptroller, the city will likely exceed caps “for years to come without major restructuring or dramatic increases in sales tax revenues.”

Apparently, the only thing holding back even higher property taxes are fairly robust sales tax revenues (from local businesses). But the comptroller cautioned on that too, because the future looks riskier.

So, hold on to your wallets Kingstonians, since in the absence of any local ‘rich billionaires’, you may very well be the next best tax target.

The only expense to get attention at last week’s committee meeting wasn’t even explicitly on the agenda. When city comptroller John Tuey mentioned that family health insurance will now cost a staggering $45,000 per employee, even city councilman Michael Ham, a local union bigwig, was taken by surprise. He said even his union-bargained ‘Cadillac insurance’ package didn’t cost nearly that much (I heard him say his cost $25,000 a year).

But members of the committee remained quiet when Tuey forecast endless increases in property taxes for years to come (emphasis mine). Not a single member asked questions about savings, freezes, cuts, or anything. There was no discussion about ‘bending the curve’ on costs. Instead, what we heard were spending justifications, rationalized with cherry-picked comparisons to suit preferred narratives. But upon scrutiny those comparisons crumble like a good apple cobbler.

Regarding the creation of a brand-new city occupancy tax on the lodging industry, until now, members of the City Common Council and mayor said they were merely seeking the state’s permission for implementing a “possible future” tax of up to 3%. Dutiful local newspapers reported this fantasy with no questioning, giving politicians breathing space until the next media cycle.

But as soon as Albany approved the new tax request, bam — the 3% tax, the highest rate approved, was set to take effect once the full Common Council votes on it this fall, making the outcome seem like a fait accompli.

With this new city tax, added to the state’s 8% sales tax and county’s 4% occupancy tax, lodging taxes in Kingston will be a whopping 15%! That’s higher than New York City’s 14.75%.

To justify this, some common council members compared Kingston’s proposed tax to what Las Vegas, Bar Harbor, Maine and Santa Fe tax. Without getting too much into the weeds on this, those comparisons are absurd on many levels. But most notably, Santa Fe and Las Vegas invest millions of dollars annually on tourism promotion using collected occupancy taxes. They at least reinvest in their businesses’ future.

In comparison, Kingston currently spends nothing to support tourism, or businesses for that matter. And Ulster County’s tourism advertising budget for the entire county doesn’t even exceed $1 million.

Adding insult to injury for local businesses, during the meeting, there was a very brief mention by one councilperson that “many letters about the occupancy tax proposal were received” opposing the tax. But literally in the same breath those letters were dismissed out of hand by saying “we can assume feelings are mixed in the community,” without offering any supporting evidence.

What’s the point of writing letters and making phone calls if they are summarily dismissed?

Then another councilperson justified the new tax because visitors use our precious city resources, like fire, EMS and police services. He said he sees firetrucks at a local hotel all the time, likely “responding to burnt popcorn or something.” But these guests are already paying for their visits — with state and county sales taxes and bed tax, of which Kingston gets a piece. Plus, let’s not forget these lodging businesses also pay substantial property taxes.

The way that local business and taxpayers were summarily dismissed at the city finance and audit committee meeting was appalling. To local pols, business is merely a carcass to chop up for money. To them, business should just sit down, shut up, and pay up. But this approach ignores an important truth — that helping businesses grow helps to build future city sales tax revenues, which in turn helps to keep pace with their spending.

Property taxes were another topic of the finance and audit committee last week. To explain how this topic lands with certain constituencies, it may be helpful to understand that Kingston’s housing is about 52% renter occupied and only 48% owner-occupied. In comparison, Ulster County housing is 70% owner-occupied and 30% renter-occupied.

For renters, the pain of property taxes is indirect, not top of mind. Renters don’t see taxes broken out in their monthly statements, but landlords do pass rising tax costs onto renters in the form of higher rents.

And another thing — higher property taxes can discourage new housing development — something most want.And importantly, research shows that lower-income households and people of color often face regressive tax assessments where modest properties are over-assessed relative to their true market value, further accelerating displacement and fueling gentrification.

In sum, for all the big talk about affordability by city and county officials, especially on housing, raising property taxes is completely counterproductive to addressing the issue. It sets up a vicious circle of tax and spend, tax and spend.

Many of us have been to this show before and it’s ruinous.

It's time for city government to declare a spending and hiring freeze. Also, the city needs to establish a task force to review structural reforms to put things on a sustainable path. No doubt, painful and difficult decisions lie ahead.

Let’s ask the city to convene a task force to look at all city spending — no sacred cows off the table — and find a pathway toward fiscal sustainability. To delay this is to just make inevitable choices harder down the road.

If we do not change, much of the hard work so many have contributed to revitalize our city post-IBM will be lost.

Additionally, city government needs to think about its business community as a partner, not merely a carcass to slice. If Kingston can have commissions for the Arts, Trees, Live Well, Human Rights, Historic Preservation, Climate Smart, and many other boards and task forces, why not a Kingston Business Commission? Seems like an oversight, doesn’t it?

But it’s now time to fix that.